Here comes the staff calling post I promised, everyone. Let's hope enough respond to get this settled.
@Mr._Bambu @Ultima_Reality @Damage3245 @Armorchompy @Celestial_Pegasus @Firestorm808 @UchihaSlayer96 @Deagonx
Gentlemen, you have been summoned here to decide on this thread. Or, well, you have been summoned here to decide on the current main issue of the thread.
I will write you a summary of the arguments here, so don't bother reading the OP, as it also debates a bunch of other stuff which is not that important right now.
Namely, what should be the tier for the main group of low-tiers? The feats that currently scale them to 8-B have been discredited, so we need to rethink them.
That group consists of about 40 characters currently. Namely:
One could debate a few, but that's about the order of magnitude. As such it is important to make sure that this is based on solid feats.
One important thing to remember in that regard is that this is the tier of what, in universe, is considered regular human to slight superhumans. Most of those characters aren't meant to be able to break through a solid wall through pure physical strength (the higher ranking one's amongst them have breaking through thin walls and doors as their supposedly impressive feats). They are generally not bulletproof and vulnerable to regular weaponry.
As far as they have physical feats, most of them have roughly street level ones. Maybe some low-tier wall level between them.
E.g.
Agnese can crack and dent the floor a little.
Mugino can casually punch someone a few meters.
Tsuchimikado can send a man flying two meters away with an elbow strike.
Teshio is said to be able to destroy a door or a thin wall with her strikes.
Oriana has blows described as capable of breaking down a door.
Komaba is described as giving enough strength to allow its user to tear a human in two with their bare hands; his kicks can tear through metal like it was paper; he has used kicks to launch metal bars through a car then into asphalt and has also destroyed a dumpster with a kick.
Oumi pierces
small robots with her kunai.
Tsurigane can make
some superhuman jumps and slice some stuff apart.
Kagun can stab a hand into someone's head.
...and so on. Those are what are mentioned as feats on the profiles, but I could find more stuff like that. The point is: While those are not anti-feats or anything, on their own that's where they stand. Hence we really want solid evidence before ranking characters tens of thousands of times stronger than that.
The Proposals
There are two main proposals for how to rank these characters currently.
My proposal is to list the characters at close to baseline 9-B right now. You can see the reasoning behind that ranking in OP in the section "Tree Breaking". As you can tell from what I wrote before, I think that's an option reasonably close at the character's own feats.
@FantaRin_The_First instead proposes to scale the characters to "9-A+, likely 8-C". We will address the evidence for that in detail in the following.
Fanta gave a summary on his own, which I quote here. It mainly relates to the first feat I address right after.
Wait, frick. I knew I was forgetting something! Sorry! Sorry!
Okay, so... Main Point (Currently)
DT's Stance
- Scaling Hard Taping Arei to Base!Arei's Tree Feat as it was done by her in Junko and hers first fight, following suit is downscaling Kuroko to an Injured!Hard Taping Arei due to their fight - thus Hard Taping Arei should be 9-B, and Kuroko should be At Least 9-C, Possibly 9-B
My Stance
- Scaling/Downscaling Hard Taping to Junko 8-C Feat as she performed less than a min or two before Arei threw the first punch and started their fight, following suit is downscaling Kuroko to an Injured!Hard Taping Arei due to their fight - thus Hard Taping Arei should be At Most 8-C/9-A+, Kuroko should be At Least 9-A+, Possibly At Most 8-C/9-A, Possibly Higher
My Points (DT will be better in arguing his points)
- As stated above, Junko's 8-C Feat happened a very short time before Arei decided to drop by unannounced and start a fight
- In the official Astral Buddy translation, there is no line of text that holds a direct mention or implication that Junko's fight with Iruka drastically dropped her stats and was operating at a worse level than usual - and even in the fan-translation that does hold an implication of reduced performance, it seems more focused on Arei's amazing boost in speed and agility than anything else
- In their first fight, Junko was the one that held the upperhand and this understanding of this physical gap caused Arei to go towards the path of physical amp tech - meaning if we assume Tired!Junko dropped down to Base!Arei' levels, it would mean the hard-taping was worse then useless
- Arei's feat is 49.0508202 Kilojoules, Junko's Feat is 0.28 Tons of TNT - and If I did my math right... The difference in strength between these two feats is 23883.8004x, or in more simple terms, Junko is 23883.8004x more stronger than Base!Arei - this isn't even considering the fact that a casual feat from a younger, and thus weaker, Junko is still 80.9267736x stronger than Arei's feat
- Prior to Junko unleashing the self-destructive full-power of Rampage Dress, Hard Taping Arei had her on the ropes and made her mad deseperate in attempting of thinking up a way to get out of the mess she'd gotten herself into.
- The Arei that Kuroko fought still had Hard Taping on and was using it to reduce the effects of her injuries - ergo, an Injured!Hard Taping Arei should still be vastly superior to her Base self and should at the downscale from her Peak!Hard Taping self
- Kuroko directly compared Arei's agility to that of Junko's, and was still "confident" in the idea of facing a Peak!Arei despite suffering from multiple blows and directly knowing that Arei, at her peak, placed Junko in the hosptial for a bit
And everything else... is kinda not important. Essentially it is me just pointing out that Touma endured an attack that Index dubbed as a fatal magical attack, Touma enduring a blow from Terra that OHKO Itsuwa later on, Touma being comparable to Salome - via Yuiitsu - who could damage and defeat Class 6 Elements without the aid of her magic... and a few other direct 9-A durability feats from Touma, one dura feat from Vento, one AP feat from Thor, one from one of the accel manga wind twins, and that... is it.
Thoughts, Gun?
Junko Scaling
The big reason for the rating is the idea that those characters should downscale from
Junko, a character with a supernatural power that makes her superhumanly strang. Now, don't get confused: Junko herself loses the 8-B rating and
will be 8-C after the revision.
The idea for the scaling relies on characters scaling to
Arei, who is supposed to (down-)scale to Junko.
Arei fights Junko twice. One time in her regular form and one time using a physical stat enhancement technology called Hard Taping.
My opinion is that the first fight doesn't scale at all, while the second fight might downscale to her enhanced form, but that enhanced form scales to nobody else.
Let's go over the first fight first.
The First Fight - Base Arei
This is the entire fight. They are interrupted afterwards. I think the problem is obvious: Arei points out immediately that Junko holds back on her power-enhancing ability because she doesn't like turning humans into mush. Arei has an ability that allows her to hear emotions, so she knows.
With that the entire fight is useless for scaling as far as I am concerned.
There is also these lines from Junko's first fight with her:
"My attacks don't seem to land heavily. Is it telekinesis? Floating her body to avoid the full impact of my blows" - Junko
"I underestimated you, huh? My bad. No more pulling punches. Let's both go all out now... As we kill each other!" - Arei
This paints an interesting picture, as well... Junko honestly thought Arei had some Esper ability to reduce the strength of her blows; which we know isn't the case as it is explictly stated Arei's only "supernatural ability" is that of the ability to sense emotions and everything else comes from her ninja training, so she must have taken the full blunt of her blows. Arei, on the other hand, more-or-less stated that she wasn't going all-out and even pulling her punches, so her previous exchange with Junko isn't the full showcase of what a regular Arei can do.
The floating things obviously doesn't mean she tanks the hits via durability. Arei is trained as a ninja and quite skilled. You will see in the next fight that she is confident in her ability to even mitigate a punch that, when she fails to apply her skill, oneshot her.
And taking the "no more pulling punches" of the heavily bleeding girl that got her ass handed to her by someone using a fraction of her power as a reason for scaling obviously doesn't work.
Since Arei has no strength boosting techniques (outside of Hard Taping) it clearly, in particular, doesn't mena that Arei was holding back her physical strength.
The Second Fight - Enhanced Arei
This fight is also not long, so let's have a look.
Junko initially struggles, but after unleashing her full power she oneshots Arei. Junko's feat likely was done with less than the full power mode she demonstrated here, but seeing her tendency to hold back against humans (and due to Junko coming out of another hard fight just before Arei's here) I have my doubts that she used as much power against Arei in the beginning as she did for the feat.
So, downscaling Arei enhanced with Hard Taping to Junko is probably still somewhat fine IMO.
So why do I think enhanced Arei scales to nobody in turn? Well, the only other fight in which Arei used hard taping is against Kuroko. So that's where the scaling must come from.
However, Arei wasn't at the best of her abilities there.
As noted
here Arei was still injured from getting beaten by Junko in the Kuroko fight and that notably decreased her strength.
She was also advised to rest instead before the fight.
Note that Hard Taping is a double-edged sword that greatly strains the body and could even destroy it. Which means that in all likelihood Arei in her injured state can not even use it to its full potential.
Basically, both Arei's base strength and the degree of her enhancement are below herself from the Junko fight.
Now, after the fight Kuroko says "
If she had been in top form... no, I still would've won." This could be seen as both evidence in favour or against the scaling. Against it, because she clearly thought she would have lost if Arei had been in top form. So surprise, despite Arei being nerfed Kuroko was still the notably physically weaker one in that fight.
She even gets some damage when she manages to block the attack.
But one could think that the fact that Kuroko then changes her mind and says she won means the gap isn't that large... but I disagree.
Saying that after the fight when you never have to prove it is easy. And Kuroko is cocky, optimistic and self-confident. She has talked smack after winning fight before and she also displayed unjustified confidence before. E.g.
She thought she would find some way to win against Awaki, despite her ability being a direct upgrade on top of Kuroko's, just having lost against her and Kuroko at that point not having received any information yet to suggest she had a weakness. Kuroko proceeded to almost die again in the next fight against Awaki btw.
Kuroko's teleport ability also can negate durability, sooo... yeah. That throwaway line shouldn't be used as evidence for scaling.
Some Anti-Feats
Before we get to more supportive feats for 9-A, I want to bring up some anti-feats. I already said that in general those characters aren't bullet proof. But let me list a few more (main of the primary protagonist Kamijou Touma.)
First, Touma is by explanation of the author is supposed to be a regular human and loses in practice against regular soldiers.
The opponent Kamijou Touma completely lost to was not a monster from the magic or science sides. It was a normal soldier who had gathered as much normal power as possible. This functions as an important brake in this series. If he can ever defeat someone like that without thinking, the series is as good as over.
Here is a practical fight between Touma and a soldier.
Kamijou did not understand what had happened to him.
He found himself unable to breathe and his vision filled with white like an overexposed photograph. Heat quickly gathered above his neck and he could not move his head well, so he reached for his neck and finally found a dry sensation.
An arm was strangling him from behind.
By the time he determined that, he had already lost feeling in his limbs. Rather than crushing his windpipe and preventing him from breathing, the attacker was placing pressure on his carotid arteries to keep blood from his brain. Before he could even resist, his consciousness slipped into a world of darkness.
“Damn you!!”
Othinus shouted toward the person who wore a white ghillie suit that looked a bit like a yeti costume. The attacker did not hesitate to use the unconscious boy’s body as a shield while keeping their arm around his neck.
The attacker was plenty cautious of Othinus’s power.
Even with no detailed knowledge of magic, the memory of the United States’ army and administration being brought down in Hawaii was still fresh. That was why the attacker had started by attacking Kamijou instead of Othinus.
Her power was unknown, but she was travelling with Kamijou Touma and would thus want to keep the boy with her. That was why he would function as a shield.
With her attention forced onto that fact, Othinus froze in place, but then the snow unnaturally burst up at her feet.
It was a gunshot.
The fact that they were surrounded further dulled Othinus’s thoughts.
The attacker decided this was the optimal moment and slipped a hand inside the ghillie suit. That hand came out holding a knife with a blade longer than thirty centimeters.
While using Kamijou Touma’s unconscious form as a shield, the attacker did not hesitate to throw that knife toward the center of Othinus’s head.
The entire process took only twenty seconds and it ended with a dull noise.
Now one could say that the soldier specifically chocked him, but a) a thousands of time stronger character should be able to free himself and b) the author clearly said in the prior quote that those people just are stronger than him.
Next, we have Touma acknowledge that he would die when falling 200m.
Kamijou’s body was fired diagonally up by its force until he was 200 meters up in the night sky. In the instant when the force pushing him up and gravity were in equilibrium, Kamijou Touma floated motionless in the air and looked at the sparse night view of Folkestone.
(What do I do...?)
The countdown for his fall began.
And Kamijou’s right hand did not have a convenient power that would allow him to land safely from a fall of 200 meters.
(What do I do!?)
The always present force of gravity bared its fangs towards Kamijou Touma.
In fact, a fall from the second storey could notably injure him.
It hurt like hell.
A straining pain erupted all across Kamijou Touma’s body, but he did not have time to scream like normal.
“…!!”
Even though there had been a soft lawn below instead of hard asphalt, there was still something wrong with being able to move so soon after having his back slammed into the ground after being tossed from a second-story window. He hated to admit it, but this had saved him here.
“Falling from the second-story balcony without getting hurt wasn’t because of the changes to my body. I got lucky and escaped unscathed. Just like a baby that’s just fine after falling from high up.”
And here is
a 9-B magician supposed to be able to instantly kill him. And not even via her magic (Touma's right hand would negate it), but just by crushing him with the sheer weight of the stone golem she uses.
Raising its fist, Ellis was just nicely positioned above Kamijou. In that situation, even if Kamijou used his right hand and destroyed Ellis’ fist, several tons of rubble would collapse and crush him to death.
Landing with 180 km/h on the ground would be lethal for him.
He lost his balance and fell from the carriage.
The deadly asphalt was rushing by at 180km/h below and the female knight could not catch him on the horse because she had charged at the Golden magicians.
And he can also be harmed by what is supposed to be random street thugs that the police can easily deal with. (Like base
Hamazura)
Other characters in that scaling chain also have anti-feats. I haven't extensively searched for them, but here is one from Awaki for example:
Musujime instinctively knew that she could not win if she let this chance slip away. But when she tried to step forward, she realized she couldn’t move her right leg. It felt like a bunch of powerful instant glue had stuck it to the ground, but Musujime remembered that feeling well. The repulsive feeling was caused by her leg being stuck into the ground from about halfway down the calf and below. She had transported to the wrong spot. Pain. Fear. Shock. Those emotions she had once experienced exploded in the bottom of her stomach.
(I can overcome this…) Musujime gripped the metal stake tightly, bit her lip, and suppressed it all. There was a companion she had to protect behind her. In order to protect that life, Musujime Awaki would crush the past that was creeping out!! (I will overcome this!! I ’ ll over come everything related to this annoying scar!!) She stuck with it and moved her leg as if she was pulling it out of mud. As she did, she heard a tearing sound. Musujime Awaki did not avert her gaze. She moved forward. Like a bullet, Musujime moved to wards the Block assassin who was threatening her companion ’ s life while gripping the metal stake and ignoring her torn up leg. A noticeably thick noise rang out within the cell. All strength left Teshio ’ s body. She looked like she was leaning up against Musujime and barely moved her lips as she spoke in Musujime’s ear. “ …You went easy on me. ” The metal stake was in Musujime ’ s hand. However, just before impact, she had spun the stake around so the flat back end hit Teshio instead of the sharp tip. “ Unfortunately, ” Musujime responded in an uninterested manner, “ this is the kind of leadership I wanted. ”
Dragging her bloody leg along, Musujime Awaki slowly left the solitary- confinement cell. The other cells were locked. She couldn ’ t get her companions out of them. And even if she did try to forcibly break them out, the upper classes of Academy City might just make them disappear.
From a distance, Musujime Awaki stared at the juvenile hall with smoke rising from it. Something like a bandage was wrapped around her bloody leg. It was organic artificial skin made of corn fiber. It felt weird to her, but her body ’ s regenerative ability would eventually unite with it and shape it into “ human skin ” without leaving a scar.
She was incapable of pulling her foot out of stone via pure strength, with is certainly weird for a 9-A+ or even building level character.
Personally, I think baseline 9-B via accidental superhuman is still not too contradictory to this (a bunch of those are probably around that level when quantified). 9-A+ or 8-C is so far into superhuman that it greatly clashes, though.
Touma Tanks Explosion
The first supportive feat is
this calc that is supposed to make Touma 9-A+. The problem with the calc is that it is wrong.
What's the problem with it? Well, the calc is wrong. For one I doubt the method used to get distance from the explosion.
But that is just a side concern, the bigger problem is that this is a dust explosion. Specifically, flour was spread throughout the air and then ignited. The fireball is the result of the flour in the air catching fire and then in return igniting more of the floating flour.
Our explosion formulas use that shockwaves usually decay according to a cube law. But that only applies when the shockwaves expand throughout an explosive, while in this case the fireball
is the explosive. Rather than strength, the size of the explosion here is 30m because the flour spread 30m, not due to the inherent strength of the explosion. As such the formula is just as inapplicable here as it would be for a forest fire or something.
Touma Tanks Tatemiya's attack
Tatemiya has a
9-A feat and Touma tanks an attack from him:
Kamijou felt his back go numb. When Tatemiya turned around, the large sword came swinging around like a tornado sweeping across. He frantically bent down to avoid that strike. A heavy impact hit Kamijou’s waist, who should have avoided successfully. Looking closer, a transparent snowb all as big as a soccer ball was buried into Kamijou’s body. When he looked at it, the snowball vanished, as if someone colored it with watercolor. Because of the blow from the snowball, Kamijou was knocked to the ground, and continued to roll.
So Touma should scale, right?
Well... things in ToAru are a little complicated.
Here a little lesson of the power system is necessary. Magic in ToAru is not simply magic power of user = spell power. In fact, the amount of magic power the user has is all in all relatively irrelevant most of the time. Spells in ToAru, including Tatemiya's, are based on
Idol Theory. Long story short: A spell imitates some supernatural thing and gets a fraction of the power of thesupernatural thing by doing so. The fraction is determined by how good the imitation is. That's why the same magician can have two spells of entirely different tiers.
Ureapaddy is a good example for that.
So, we don't know how Tatemiya's wall busting spell (which we never see him prepare, only ever the end result; so we don't know how casual it is) compares to the snowball spell.
The spells Tatemiya uses mid battle, like the snowball one, are less meant for brute force and more to be woven in amongst deception.
The magic that the Amakusa used wasn’t really special on its own. At least not as grand, unique and powerful as Stiyl’s Innocentius or Aureolus’ Ars Magna. However, the Amakusa in turn used that point against them. Kanzaki’s Nanasen was p robably the best example. If there was one word that could describe the Amakusa’s basic fighting style, it was “disguise”. Most of the attacks that looked like magic were just simple illusions, but among those illusions, there was a real magical fatal blow .
That doesn't mean that they can not be lethal, but considering the number of people this affects, the anti-feats etc. I don't trust the snowball and the wall busting spell to be of the same strength.
What further speaks against that is this scene later in the fight:
The problem, however, was that Kamijou was standing between Stiyl and Tatemiya.
If he were to charge towards Tatemiya, he would have to pierce through Kamijou first. In an instant, the flame priest’s face became distorted due to frustration. The inner conflict inside him only lasted a while. Then, a glimmer of determination appeared in the priest’s eyes.
( A long time ago, I swore — )
Stiyl Magnus tried to adjust his breathing with his dry mouth.
( — Sleep well, even if you forget everything, I’ll remember it forever. I’ll live for you, and die for you.)
In order to protect the most important thing, Stiyl aim ed the flame sword at the teenager’s back. Exhaling all the oxygen inside his body and losing consciousness at the same time, Kamijou saw Tatemiya raise the long sword in front of him.
He desperately recollected the thoughts that he had lost and tried to grasp the situation. With his two legs shaking, there was no way Kamijou could dodge Tatemiya’s next attack. Index was rushing there, and in several seconds, she would be beside Tatemiya, and be killed.
Glancing behind, Stiyl raised his flame sword, but his own body seemed to be blocking the flame sword’s path.
Within one second, Kamijou’s thoughts were very clear.
If he didn’t want to lose anyone, or anything, and allow everything to end with everyone smiling…
There was only one way.
“… Come on.”
Kamijou clenched his fist.
“ Pierce through me as well, Stiyl!”
Kamijou squeezed out his last ounce of strength and dashed towards Tatemiya Saiji without hesitation.
Upon hearing that, Tatemiya Saiji was somewhat messed up.
There was an Anglican nun rushin g in from behind him, but killing her would be easy. In order to protect the nun, the boy in front of him also clenched his fist, but he would be alright even after killing the boy in front of him, then the nun behind him. The problem was the priest behind the boy.
That Anglican lowered the flame sword to his waist, and charged toward him. “ !?”
If the priest decided to stab him with the flame sword, it would pierce through the boy’s body without question. But, there was no sign of hesitation in the priest’s eyes. His eyes were as sharp as the blade of a knife, his mouth smiling like a beast, and his mind seemed to only think about taking down the enemy. In order to block the flame sword’s strike, Tatemiya raised the Flamberge.
But at that moment, the boy placed his right fist backwards, preparing to strike like a hammer.
“ Peh…!” If he blocked that strike, he wouldn’t be able to defend against the flame sword. Also, the main objective of the flame sword wasn’t to cut, but to explode. He would probably die at once if he was not careful in handling that. If he did not quickly activate a spell that defended against flames to defend against the flame sword first, he would be swallowed in the flames caused by the explosion together with the boy, who was sacrificing himself.
(I’ve already cast a basic spell that defends against impacts earlier during our battle, a mere amateur’s punch shouldn’t be able to hurt me. What’s scary is that flame sword. I have to set up an anti- flame spell first!)
Stiyl (who after the revision will be 9-A for
charring humans) was supposed to be able to pierce straight through Touma in one go (Stiyl knows Touma well, so this should be true) and still attack Tatemiya. Tatemiya is supposed to be able to block that spell. See the problem? Touma << Stiyl's sword < Tatemiya's max power.
Tatemiya also estimates after fighting Touma for a bit (and hitting him with the snowball spell) that his spell should be enough to make him immune to Touma's punch (he doesn't know that Touma can negate spells).
Basically, the novel strongly indicates that Touma's physical capabilities are actually not at the level of Tatemiya's peak magic output later in the same fight.
One thing I should still address, since Fanta brings it up, is that Index called Tatemiya's attacks fatal blow... or, well technically she just says that Amakusa in general mix fatal blows into illusions, not that this particular hit was.
Let’s go back in time for a moment, to when Kamijou and Tatemiya just met each other.
When the boy was about to be sliced by that sword, Index rushed forward without hesitation.
(That is… Amakusa…)
Index trembled as she ran.
Besides being fearful, she was impressed.
The magic that the Amakusa used wasn’t really special on its own.
At least not as grand, unique and powerful as Stiyl’s Innocentius or Aureolus’ Ars Magna. However, the Amakusa in turn used that point against them.
Kanzaki’s Nanasen was probably the best example.
If there was one word that could describe the Amakusa’s basic fighting style, it was “disguise”. Most of the attacks that looked like magic were just simple illusions, but among those illusions, there was a real magical fatal blow
It's just that I don't think this supports much. Because... fatal for who? Clearly not for Touma. So a baseline human then? A 9-C attack would qualify for that description already, which is in line with the general Low-Tier feats.
Thor throws an overpass
Thor has
this feat. Which is nice, problem is it doesn't scale.
Thor is a battle maniac that holds back in fights to enjoy them more.
Heck, in his first fight with Touma Thor shot himself with a gun as a handicap.
“The handgun,” said Thor simply. “The one I shot myself with is lying nearby. I’m sure the idea flashed through your mind. My blades are too long. Your fist’s range is too short. After all, this is 2 kil ometers…2000 meters. You want something that lets you ignore distance. And you know for a fact my body is not all that sturdy. If you shoot a bullet into me, it will make a hole. I proved that myself.”
He threw that overpass via a special physical stat strengthening magic in a fight against
Silvia.
“The Lightning God Thor was a god of superhuman strength. Throughout all of Norse mythology only two could use the lightning hammer Mjölnir because of how damn heavy it was. My spiritual items include his belt. I hold the name of the god of war said to be even more powerful than the god that ripped apart Fenrir’s jaws. Do you really think a mere bridge is going to be enough to crush me!?”
So what's the issue? Simple, he never used that strengthening spell against Touma. In their first fight, they never physically struggled against each other and in their second fight Thor didn't use any magic technique except the Almighty Thor spell (including his fusion blades that could oneshot Touma). And in that fight too he bothered to explain his technique to Touma and stuff.
Thor also once took out Touma with one blow at the end of their first fight.
“ Thor is more than a mere lightning god. ”
It was too late. A dull sound rang out.
Kamijou’s body flew through the air and slammed forcefully into the ground.
His mind was hazy. The scenery in his vaguely shaking vision was covered in the orange of evening. It took quite a long time for Kamijou to realize he was collapsed on his back.
“Thor is…” He heard a voice coming from somewhere.
The voice was coming from somewhere outside the range of Kamijou’s vision.
“…currently known as the #2 in Norse mythology and as the war god that rules over thunder and lightning. But a different view can be seen in the earliest legends. I guess you could say he was involved in agriculture and refining metals. He was the god that helped with the production and manufacturing that supported the culture.”
What had happened to Kamijou? What had he been hit with in that final moment? Kamijou desperately tried to gather information, but it did not go well. His head had been completely shaken, so he was unable to even grasp the supporting pillar needed at the base of thoughts.
“But things change based on people’s circumstances. Ruling is a lot easier when the god at the very top is a war god that protects the military rather than a god that protects farmers and manufacturers. Being known as the most distinguished god holds a lot of meaning. So at that point, Thor became a lightning god. Originally, he was in control of all forms of weather, the seasons, and natural disasters, but he be came a god who can only boast of his cheap destructive power.”
Only Thor’s words continued.
“Do you understand, Kamijou Touma?”
His words continued calmly.
“To befit the original meaning of the name, I headed down a certain path. If that girl hadn’t ta ken such ridiculous measures to gain knowledge even if she had to pull out one of her eyes and hang herself , I could have stood at the top of Gremlin .”
Kamijou could not gather his thoughts. He could not come to any conclusion.
Thor spoke softly to him.
“You defeated Thor as a lightning god…but that was as far as you got. You could not reach the level of the Almighty Thor.”
He had lost. He had been defeated. After hearing the words from someone else’s mouth, Kamijou finally grasped the situation he w as in. Even with both his wrists broken and his arc fusion blades unusable, that monster had easily defeated Kamijou. And now he spoke with a light tone. “But don’t worry too much about what’s to come. I may have made it sound like no one knows what the Magic God Othinus will do with her route to completing the spear destroyed, but it isn’t like I don’t have a guess. Since I’ve won, I’ll take responsibility for winning. …To be honest, you try too hard. You’re protecting the world too much all on your own. Take this chance to get some rest and let yourself relax.” Kamijou’s hazy vision turned toward something. He could not find the boy anywhere in the orange- tinted scene.
“Thor…?” he muttered, but no one responded. The boy had disappeared at some point.
At that point, Kamijou Touma’s consciousness cut out.
To be fair, Touma was already greatly weakened at that point.
Heck, the Thor that gave Touma a beat down in their second fight was taken out in a single hit... a single hit from a regular train that is. He just didn't use the strengthening when he beat up Touma in that fight.
I will bring up that FantaRin argues Thor should have been boosted in the fight as he should, presumably, have been wearing the belt. But I don't think we have any evidence that him wearing the belt equates to the spell being activated. Especially if Thor
wants to hold back. I mean, he can also shoot himself with a regular bullet while wearing it if he wants to, so I think he has control of it...
In fact, during the second fight the strength of Thor's punches was described as "no less than a normal human, but not as violent as a jackhammer."
The force of the fist had been no less than that of a normal human. At the very least, it had not been as violent as a jackhammer. He was only coughing up blood because of the previous damage accumulated in his ribs.
So yeah, he clearly wasn't using that strengthening spell that lets him lift 1600 tons.
Basically my point is that we just have no reason to scale that feat of Thor to the low tiers.
Salome Killing Elements
So,
Salome is somewhere in the scaling chain and she can kill Class 6
Elements, who are currently ranked 8-C.
Kamisato Kakeru…or rather, the girls on either side of him shot forward like artillery shells.
Salome, the mass murderer in a white swimsuit and double raincoats, and the pirate girl, who wore a pirate hat and a bikini, were both monsters who had torn through the Class 6 Elements as a close-quarters combat pair.
What's the problem here?
Well, for one the Elements are 8-C just due to being 100m big and using that size to destroy buildings. According to a recalc
they are just 9-A.
Then look at an actual fight against an Element:
“No matter how big you make it, did you really think you could win by repeating yourself?”
That was all.
He did not even snap his fingers.
Several explosions of noise sounded as if the air had burst around Kamijou. By the time he realized it was the sound of the surrounding girls kicking off the ground, the fierce and unilateral attack had begun.
Misaka Mikoto had used altitude and distance to fire down on the enemy from the safety of the sky like a bomber or a gunship, but the girls of the Kamisato Faction were the exact opposite.
They were more like attack fighters approaching the enemy aircraft. No, they may have been more like missiles tearing through the sky after being released from the fighter’s main wings. They had overwhelming speed and mobility. One was a bikini girl in a pirate hat. One was a girl in a suit of armor who wielded several swords, spears, and axes. One was a mass murderer in a white school swimsuit and double raincoats. They kicked off the ground, jumped over guardrails, and even used building walls and wind turbine pillars for footing as they charged toward the plesiosaur-like monster with sharp curveball-like movements.
Of course, the enemy fought back.
Its claws and beak gave a roar as it scattered flames as sticky as heavy oil.
But none of it hit. Instead of keeping their distance or flying into the sky, the girls moved as close to the monster as they could, prevented it from moving, and cut off the carnivorous inchworm’s view to create blind spots. The girls sometimes slipped between its legs, circled behind it, ran up on top of it, and passed blade after blade through it.
To a hundred meter Element, a blade wielded by a human was nothing more than a toothpick.
But definite cracks formed. And they spread and grew.
By some twist of physics, the giant form fell apart even though they used no poison, electric currents, or bloodsucking. They used brute strength to defeat a monster over fifty times their size. It seemed to entirely ignore the rules of nature.
As the translucent remains audibly crumbled and the background shimmered from the remaining flames, only the many girls remained standing.
They kill it via what is described as being hit by toothpicks. They kill it via repeated stacked use of scratch damage. So I consider it highly questionable if they actually scale to it. It's like bringing down a building by repeatedly destroying walls in it until it collapses.
Next is the thing that Salome can boost her strength via magic, by destroying weapons. Fanta says the following proves she didn't do that against elements:
“And Salome.”
“!?”
It came from directly behind.
As if to get back at her for the chainsaw attack, the one-armed mass murderer charged toward Kihara Yuiitsu. She ran into the forest of weapons on the back of the A.A.A. Everything that formed that steel-winged demon was a meal for Salome.
“You haven’t forgotten I’m a magician that gains power by using the weapons I destroy as a sacrifice to my god, have you!? Yes, I couldn’t consume the Elements when they were ‘life forms’, but the A.A.A. is a ‘weapon’!!”
If Kihara Yuiitsu had that power taken, she would have lost her precious advantage. And even if not, tearing away the weapons would reduce the number of cards available to her.
However, while she couldn't consume the elements, Salome is known to carry a bag with weapons with her to user her abilities and on one occasion even consumed the weapons of her allies to use her power.
Basically, that she couldn't use the Elements as power source, doesn't mean that she wasn't boosted. And with boosts, the scaling doesn't work.
Vento Tanks a Missile
So a character called Vento has
this feat (or
this recalc if it ends up accepted) that is 9-A. Note how Vento is not even in the low tier scaling chain I mentioned earlier.
So what is the idea? Well,
Touma defeated Vento by just punching her. So easy scaling?
Nope. Touma's punches negate magic, including magic that grants superhuman durability. So if Vento's durability is created via magic, then Touma doesn't scale to it.
So is it created via magic? Well... the novel doesn't specify one way or another.
I believe the reasonable assumption is that it is in fact magic, though. Why?
Several magicians that have superhuman physical stats are known to have them through magic. That includes each of the 20 saints, the
Valkyries,
Carissa,
Amakusa,
Tatamiya,
Knights,
Knight Leader,
Thor,
Itsuwa and so on and so forth.
Meanwhile, no other power system for granting superhuman stats appears applicable to Vento. Magicians can't use esper powers, she hates science and would not use science equipment and she is a regular human.
That leaves just natural durability, as in just having a biologically that strong body via training or something. However, she is not stated or indicated to have that and, in fact, no other character in the whole series is noted to have reached the point of being immune to modern weaponry via regular strength alone.
So... what is more likely? That the magician, in the verse with many known magicians that have boosted their stats via magic, is superhuman via magic or that it is a completely unmentioned unexplained non-magical durability that only she has?
I think Occam's Razor speaks in favour of the magic.
Tatemiya -> Itsuwa -> Terra -> Touma
So, Tatemiya has the 9-A feat we already talked about. This evidence is based on the idea that Tatemiya scales to
Itsuwa.
Itsuwa was knocked out by one solid hit from Terra.
Just like a trap in an old castle, the ceiling of that floor suddenly lowered. The pillars supporting the ceiling sank down unnaturally into the floor. “ !! ” Itsuwa hurriedly held her spear vertically. She wedged the spear between the falling ceiling and the floor narrowly avoiding being crushed to death. But in doing so she lost her weapon. Terra then mercilessly attacked with his guillotine. There was an explosive roar. The horizontally flying guillotine directly hit Itsuwa’s defenseless body. She doubled over while a dull sound could be heard and the shock knocked her small body through the air. Her body rolled a few meters as she bounced 2 or 3 times until her body finally lost its momentum and stopped. She lay limp and did not get up. Her arms and legs were splayed out, but her chest was slowly rising and falling so she wasn ’ t dead. However, it didn’t look like she would regain consciousness anytime soon.
And the one time he hit Touma he was not K.O.ed.
He casually swung his hand horizontally and the white blade followed suit. The giant blade evaded past Kamijou ’ s right hand and lunged at his body.
(Oh, shi- !?)
He lacked the time to even finish the thought. The blade ’ s width was thicker than his thumb. He felt it press up against his skin and dig in.
Pain exploded about him. Kamijou ’ s body doubled over from the force of the guillotine an d he was launched into the side wall.
Shortly after he heard a loud thud, he heard a painful cracking noise from his body. (…!?) He was unable to speak. The force that was pinning his stomach and back had left him breathless.
“ Gha…!? ”
However, that wa s the extent of his injuries. Kamijou ’ s was not sliced in two like the outer walls. He punched the guillotine pushing him against the wall with a shaking fist. The giant blade burst into powder and Kamijou sat on the ground, attempting to gain control of his erratic breathing.
“ … ”
Terra stared with great interest at his destroyed guillotine. He took a step back and lightly moved his fingers, calling the powder to return to him.
(I ’ m… alive…?)
Kamijou thought as he rubbed his stomach that stung with dull pain.
(That hit me, but I ’ m still alive…?)
Terra ’ s first surprise attack had easily broken through the outer wall of the museum. Kamijou had been hit by the same attack, so his body should be crushed or splattered.
Which meant…
(That and this one were different types…?)
So, easy scaling? Well, as usual there are circumstances to consider.
First, Touma notes that there are two types of attacks Terra has. One with which he broke through a wall, which Touma estimates would have killed him, and the one he actually endures. Now, the one he broke through the wall with is actually a durability negating technique and not what he hit Itsuwa with (or at least, the novel doesn't have him say the usual chant for that when he does), so that's no contradiction. Although the fact that Touma estimates a wall busting attack as lethal to him still counts towards his anti-feats.
There is another thing to be considered, though... Terra is playing around and dragging out the fight on purpose.
“ And so I was hoping you could help me kill some time. You’re the first ones to get caught by my anti- leyline spell probe, so I hope you’ll be good for some fun. ”
“ I ’ d heard about the Imagine Breaker before, so I was anticipating quite a bit. ”
Terra smiled while the white blade of unknown properties hung from his right hand.
“ But from the looks of things, you ’ re nothing much. To be honest, I ’ m a bit disappointed, I wish I ’ d never seen this. You apparently won your battle with Vento, but that was merely caused by your destroying her ‘ Divine Punishment ’ and Academy City ’ s using that ‘ fallen angel ’ with the ‘ pressure of the realm ’ to constrict her. If she were at full power, she would not have had any trouble with you. ”
(This is…)
Kamijou felt a chill down his spine as he realized something. A man who was on the same level as Vento would not attack with just a blade.
(He ’ s a part of God ’ s Right Seat…!!) Kamijou subconsciously gritted his teeth, but he doubted Terra was just going to wait for him to calm down.
“ My my, what ’ s wrong? ” Terra smiled and lifted up the sinister guillotine. “ Surely you don ’ t think you can defeat me by keeping your distance. At least allow me to enjoy this a little more. If this is all you ’ ve got, I don ’ t even need to make any ‘ adjustments ’ . ”
“ Perhaps I ’ ll give you some time, ” Terra said in a teasing way. “ Stretching out this battle doesn ’ t harm me any. I ’ ll give you 10 seconds. In that time, you can come up with a plan to defeat me or a plan to flee. …But don ’ t be mistaken. I ’ m not saying any such plans actually exist, okay? ”
Well, the ones manipulating the C- Document in the Palace of the Popes are just normal magicians, so this really could end badly. I wish I could have gotten a bit more battlefield data for my precedence spell ‘ Execution of Light ’ , though. Oh, well. ” As Terra spoke, he didn ’ t look towards Kamijou or the others and walked seemingly aimlessly through one of the large holes in one the housing complexes opened by the powered suits.
Like, he is kinda interested in seeing what Touma can do, goes there to kill some time, gives him a little bit of time mid-battle after willingly explaining his ability for them to figure out a strategy and when his allies are attacked else he says he would have liked some more data and just leaves without caring about defeating them completely.
I will also point out that Terra's attack against Touma was specifically called casual.
To that comes that Terra's attack is said to be able to bisect a person.
Whirling destruction followed the blade. The streets in the old town of Avignon were small. It gouged into the cliff- like buildings on side, blew away parked cars, and knocked entire buildings crooked. There was now a clear distinction between the pristine old street to Kamijou ’ s right and the pile of rubble to his left. The white guillotine was very destructive and it would easily slice right through a person, but… (I can deal with it using my right hand!!)
This is without the durability negation btw. as that only works on a single kind of object at once. It can't affect both walls and cars.
Now, Touma is frequently called "a normal highschool boy like you can find anywhere" in the novel, so if it says it can bisect a person, chances are that is supposed to include Touma. Or, to give a more specific reason, Touma follows up the realization that it can slice through people by saying that he can deal with it specifically use his right hand (which has the ability to nullify magic). So I think it's indicated that Touma himself acknowledges that he couldn't deal with the full force of the attack via physical strength alone.
Given the circumstances, even if Terra is 9-A, I think it's not a stretch to say that a 9-B could reasonably have tanked that once due to that one attack probably not being at full strength.
If Terra is 9-A. You may have noticed that I haven't explained why Itsuwa scales to Tatemiya. Her own page only says "As one of the strongest Amakusas she should be comparable to Tatemiya Saiji". Tatemiya is the leader of the Amakusa group. And Itsuwa has some of the best feats in the group (she has the most screen time of all of them), but nothing that would put her at 9-A physically or compare her to Tatemiya directly.
Tatemiya himself gets his durability due to spells. In his case that is specifically stated. Itsuwa is at a later point in the novel also shown to use defensive spells, the Damage Transfer charm and Scattered Grass spell, with which she could even endure some casual attacks from
Acqua which is very impressive. However, what's notable is that she doesn't use those defensive spells here. If she used the damage transfer charm, then her clothes would have been destroyed before she is K.O.ed, which doesn't happen here. The scattered grass spell on the other hand only applies when she blocks with her spear, which is also not the case here. (and it requires lots of prep which she didn't have in this case)
Basically, I don't think that at this point in the story Itsuwa even has the defensive spells active to have 9-A durability. Which means that Terra isn't 9-A either and the attack Touma tanked would in turn also not be 9-A.
Tobio Mami destroys a wall
Tobio destroys
this wall.
Allow me to show some more pages of her fight that led to this feat.
Tobio has a psychic power that creates compressed air and releases it as wind. She uses that to move around, enhance her strikes and also cause explosions. Basically, I'm not even sure if the kick that launched that guy through the wall is a pure physical attack or if she used her psychic power to enhance it.
But even if it is a purely physical attack... it doesn't matter. Tobio is from a spin-off manga that has practically no characters from the main series appear in it as combatants. There is no scaling chain at all between Tobio and any of the characters on the Low-Tier list.
The only reason to even consider this supportive evidence is that Tobio has no known mechanism for superhuman physical stats (assuming we do not assume she uses her psychic power) and hence other characters that also lack that would be comparable due to all being "normal humans". It's an immense stretch to use that to scale to begin with, but the way she decimates those armoured police officers basically proves that she is not regular person level anyway.
Edit: One Last Consideration
As one last note, I thought I should mention, it is fairly normal for ToAru that characters are holding back or have separate weaker techniques. Without those things ToAru scaling in general makes no sense.
E.g. we are talking about the durability of Touma here. On whether it is 9-B, 9-A or 8-C.
Well, Touma also has other feats.
He survived an attack from
a 7-B to 6-C high tier.
Rensa forcefully took the attack as if sacrificing one of her arms.
“Hey.” She then grabbed that wing with her hand. “Guess what, #2? My vector control
ability can alter the vectors of anything I touch. And that means…”
“…? Oh, no! Please get out of the way…!!”
“I can manipulate your Dark Matter, you idiot!!”
With a roar, the white wing twisted unnaturally as if it was a sugar sculpture being
stretched.
It flew in an irregular and difficult to predict trajectory and mercilessly slammed into
Kamijou’s upper body.
“Bh…gh!?”
It felt less like being hit by a blunt weapon and more like being hit by a car. All of the
oxygen left his lungs in an instant. He was slammed down to the ground where he rolled
backwards until he reached Fremea.
A 6-C high tier.
Kamijou Touma finally arrived right in front of Aleister.
But the Board Chairman was not out of ammunition yet. While it was limited to the magic he used, he could wield a power similar to the sparks or spray created from the colliding phases and he could direct it toward a target.
This was the same sort of power that had driven his beloved daughter to her death. It was a contradictory hidden technique covered in the same sin as those he so hated.
What did it feel like to have that as his only option for a final trump card?
Aleister Crowley was constantly failing.
That was already well established, but Kamijou could not help but sense the irony of fate here.
And Kamijou Touma never did think about dodging.
This was nothing as clean as a cross counter.
Both of their attacks stabbed mercilessly into the other’s body.
Kamijou Touma’s ribs cried out in protest. The invisible attack that dug into his side worked at destroying his flesh.
Meanwhile, his fist definitely buried itself in the Board Chairman’s face. He could feel something small breaking in that face.
A 6-B high tier.
Thus, the Golden leader would never overlook that moment.
“Cold and dry, then hot and wet.”
When Kamijou heard those words, he held his right hand up before even turning his head.
But the initial scattershot of small stones was accelerated even further by a gust of wind behind it. That threw off the boy’s rhythm. The attack hit before he could get his right hand up. He may have been able to stop it if it had had that speed to begin with, but the secondary acceleration had messed with his timing.
It was not quite the same as being stabbed with a knife.
Dull pain exploded across his entire upper body as hard and dull objects were forcibly pushed into him.
“Gah.”
He lost his balance and fell from the carriage.
The deadly asphalt was rushing by at 180km/h below and the female knight could not catch him on the horse because she had charged at the Golden magicians.
And a 5-B top tier.
That was critically important, so Kamijou Touma put on a belligerent smile.
“What kind of ‘Breaker’ was that? Honestly, who cares? You keep going so over the top that it all starts to look cheap, so I can’t help but wonder. You’re not even using that Aiwass you made a point of showing off earlier, are you? Since you broke your own rules to stop me with your left hand, let me guess: getting punched hurts like hell even for a legendary magician, doesn’t it? Am I wrong, Anna Sprengel?”
“Who gave you permission to speak?”
This time, she pressed her right palm against the boy’s stomach.
He had swung his fist and had it blocked, so he was defenseless at the moment.
The girl with the wounded pride widened her eyes as far as they would go.
“Do not get carried away. You should be dead already.”
A human-sized mass was blasted backwards as if by a point-blank shotgun blast.
While he, as I remind you, can simultaneously be harmed by random low tiers.
Obviously scaling all those people to each other makes absolutely no sense, which is why nobody argues in favour of that. It goes to show that one needs to be very careful with "random character survives random other characters attack once" kind of scaling. People just don't perform absolutely consistently.
Conclusion
I believe there is an overall pattern to these feats. Generally, the 9-A / 8-C feats are performed by mid-tiers that have canonical abilities that give them superhuman strength. Then an argument is given why a low-tier, that has no such canonical reason for super strength, is supposed to be somewhat comparable.
The problem is, in my opinion, that all these reasons for scaling mid-tiers to low-tiers are all in all questionable. Some only deal scratch damage, some are not actually in a scaling chain with the characters and others are given a canonical reason for being weaker than the version that performs the feat.
But we should require solid reasoning to upgrade dozens of characters far beyond their own feats. To that come the anti-feats. Both direct anti-feats, of characters being killed by stuff a 9-A character should be immune to, and anti-feats in terms of scaling, where mid-tiers are indicated to be able to oneshot the low-tiers.
Hence I am in favor of keeping the 9-A/8-C feats to the mid-tiers and keep the low-tiers at 9-B.
